


Iron Charm

by VespidaeQueen



Series: The Gravity Well [1]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Banter, F/M, Gen, act one, early friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 11:56:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2387429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VespidaeQueen/pseuds/VespidaeQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a bit unexpected to see him out of Darktown, but Hawke isn't about to pass up an opportunity to talk with Anders, not when she thinks that they generally get along so well. </p><p><i>“It’s surprising what people will let you do when you’re charming.” He smiles at her, and she is certain that his expression could be called exactly that. </i>Charming. Her <i>expression is a bit more suspicious.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Iron Charm

**Author's Note:**

> Started writing this for the prompt _Clever in manners of speech_ and it took off. Set in early Act One, not terribly long after Hawke and Anders first meet, but long enough that they're friendly with one another. I attempted to write Anders with a few more notes of how he was in Awakening.
> 
> The friend Anders refers to is Aura.

All of Lowtown smells strongly of smoke and burning rubbish. The foundry had caught fire earlier in the day, and while it had been contained there had been enough damage done.

Hawke’s not sure if the smell is better or worse than the normal smells that linger in the streets. It’s a change, at the very least, from the scents of non-burning rubbish, fish left out in the sun for too long, and sweat.

She’d come out onto the stairs at the front of their home, avoiding the unpleasant atmosphere from inside and _hoping_ for some fresh air, before remembering about the foundry fire. Still, while there is the _smell_ of smoke, it’s not choking the street, and she’d _much_ rather be outside than listening to her mother and uncle argue.

She’d much rather be at their home in Lothering, but wishing for _that_ is foolish. There’s no going back now, and it wouldn’t be _home_ without Bethany and father anyway.

It’s hot out, an early breath of summer, and it’s pleasant enough to sit outside with no shoes, only a loose tunic and breeches. No heavy coat or armor, no sweat stained leathers. If this were Hightown - and that’s a thought, _her_ , in _Hightown_ for more than just a quick job to be done - she’s probably be cause for quite a scandal, sitting there with bare feet and a shirt trying to slip down off her shoulder.

Not that she has many other shirts to change into. The only other one not too heavy for the heat of the late afternoon is currently soaking in a bucket in an attempt to remove a number of unsightly blood stains.

The tenant of the house across from her is hanging washing out his window. One shirt and a pair of pants in an unsightly shade of faded green. Above him, another open window belches steam or smoke, she can’t quite tell which. As there’s no screaming in panic, she assumes that it’s not _another_ building caught on fire, just a rather disastrous dinner being cooked.

Footsteps sound on the street, the slight crunch of stones and poorly cared for streets. Hawke tips her head to see, out of habit - one can never be _too_ careful when someone approaches in Lowtown as the hour grows later - and a slow smile tugs at her lips.

“Well look at _this_ ,” she says as though what she sees is the most amazing of sights. “You, outside of Darktown? I didn’t know such a thing ever happened!”

Anders smiles back at her, a lazy, amused expression. “It’s been known to, from time to time. It _is_ rare, though, so you should regard this as something of a wonder.”

“ _I’ll_ say.” She scoots over to the side of the step closest to him and leans just a bit, from here, he has to tip his head up while she can comfortably rest against the low wall that lines the stairs. “So, Serah Wonder, what brings you past my door today? Did you _miss_ me?” She bats her eyelashes and waggles her eyebrows to punctuate the rather exaggerated way she spoke.

He laughs and Hawke’s smile grows. She _likes_ it when he laughs.

“I have been sick to my heart in missing you,” he says dramatically, one hand braced against the wall. “My dear Hawke, won’t you come down and put an end to my loneliness?”

Hawke snorts and ducks her head. “No, sorry, I can’t do that.” She lifts up a foot and wiggles her toes. “No shoes!”

Anders raises an eyebrow. “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly planning on leaving these steps,” she says. “Come on, you don’t have to _stand_ that. There’s plenty of room for you to sit up here!”

Despite the ridiculous nature of their previous exchange, Anders moves far too slowly to come and sit beside her. He has not left his great feathered jacket behind, even with the warmth of the day, and when he sits down on the step just below where she sits, she can smell sweat and the sickly sweetness of spindleweed.

“You’re going to bake if you keep wearing that coat all summer,” she tells him as the thought crosses her mind. “Last summer, it got so warm that I nearly passed out in the middle of a job. I was in full leathers, mind you, with only my arms bare, and let me tell you that was a _terrible_ idea.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.” For a moment, he sits rather stiffly, then he stretches his long legs out before him and leans back, sitting perpendicular to her with his feet near hers. “I haven’t experienced a Kirkwall summer before. Are they bad?”

Hawke shrugs. “Eh. They were... _well_ , okay, they’re _so_ much warmer than Lothering summers. I thought I was going to _die_.”

Anders raises an eyebrow. “That sounds...unpleasant.”

She gives a short snort of a laugh. “You don’t sound like you believe me, but look, just try to imagine me in full leather garb, running around shooting lig-” A quick check tells her that no one is close enough to hear, but she’s not taking chances. “Fire arrows,” she says instead of _lightning_ , and to her surprise, Anders laughs.

“That’s quite an image. _Why_ am I imagining this?”

“Because I’m trying to illustrate a point - also, add in a silly hat, because I was wearing a _really_ silly hat. You know, those - uh - ones the Red Iron mercenaries wear?”

He gives her a confused look, brows drawn down as though he’s trying to work something out. Hawke has the sudden, unfortunate thought that she has _no_ idea if he’s run into the Red Iron in a _not so great_ way before.

“Wait a minute,” Anders says, and he squints further at her. “Is _that_ why some of my patients get so nervous whenever you show up at my clinic?”

“Ah. _Ahaha_. Silly hats _are_ a reason to be nervous. To be nervous about.” Excellent. Now she’s going on about nothing of importance at all. One of Anders’ eyebrows has gone up and he is regarding her with a strange expression, so Hawke leans back against the steps and sighs. “ _Right_. So, as you might not have known, up until about...oh, a month or two before we met, I was a mercenary. A _legit_ mercenary.”

“A legit mercenary? So you wore the uniform and had a scary mercenary name?”

“I _personally_ think Hawke works well as a scary mercenary name, don’t you?” She gives him a small, sheepish smile. “But yes, I suppose that’s why some people might get nervous. I did start to build up a little bit of a reputation, I suppose. A _few_ people know the name _Hawke_.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Anders says dryly. “Though I’m surprised you stopped being a mercenary - I hear the Red Iron pays well.”

“It -” Hawke begins to say, but the sound of raised voices from within her - _Gamlen's_ \- home stops her. She bites down on her lip as she glances over her shoulder at the door; she can’t tell what’s being said, but it sounds like yet another argument.

There are always arguments.

“Hawke,” Anders says, drawing her attention back to him - or at least half her attention, the rest of it still trying to make out _something_ of what is being said within her home. “Would you like to walk with me? Somewhere?”

Oh, that’s kind of him. She feels a great rush of gratitude. “Maker, _yes_. I hear the docks are great this time of...evening. Late afternoon?”

“I think this nearly qualifies as evening.”

“Right. Then an evening stroll somewhere that _isn’t_ here. Give me a moment, I need - _shoes_.” She stands and walks up the stairs, picking up her boots from where they sit just to the side of the door. Bits of dust and dirt stick to her toes; she raises her foot and brushes it against the bottom of her pant leg before pulling on one boot, then does the same with the other.

Inside the house, she can hear her mother’s voice rising shrilly.

It only takes her a moment to hop down the stairs, taking them in twos. “Shall we?” she asks. Anders casts a backwards glance at her door, then nods.

“So. The mercenary thing?” he asks her as they start down the street. He neatly avoids a pile of rubbish. “You seem so desperate for money - it surprises me you aren’t still one.”

“Have you _seen_ the things I get myself into?” Hawke laughs at her own unvoiced joke. “I’m more or less still one, just not...legitimately. But if you’re really curious, how about this - I’ll trade you an answer for an answer?”

“Not a question for a question?”

“No, but we _could_ do that, too. Aw, shit, hold up. I’ve got -” She puts a hand up against the wall and picks up her foot. “Rock in my boot.” She starts tugging it off. “I don’t mind answering, myself. It’s a _little_ bit of a story, though, so I’ll tell you if you tell _me_ how you managed to get into the city.”

“ _That_ ,” Anders says as he waits for her to pull her boot back on, “is a dreadfully dull story. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to hear it.”

“Oh, but I _do_.” Hawke stuffs her foot back into the boot and adjusts the leg of her trousers so that it’s not all bunched up. They begin to walk again, turning down the street away from her house. “See, for me? I came here by boat, all the way from Gwaren. This was about a year ago, during the height of the Blight. Kirkwall’s _never_ kind to refugees -”

“ _Really_.”

“Oh, shut up, I know you know that. The thing is, my family and I? We got stuck in the courtyard of the Gallows, with everyone else they wouldn’t let into the city. _Dearest uncle_ pulled some strings and, well, long story very short, the Red Iron paid our way into the city in exchange for my brother and I working for them for a year. No real pay, of course, since it all went to paying them back.” She throws a lopsided smile Anders’ way. “So, that’s my story of how I became a mercenary.”

“There are worse ways to get into a city, I suppose.”

“ _So?_ ” She gives him a pointed look. “Come on, how did _you_ manage to get in?”

“It’s surprising what people will let you do when you’re _charming_.” He smiles at her, and she is _certain_ that his expression could be called exactly that. _Charming_. _Her_ expression is a bit more suspicious.

“ _I’m_ charming,” she tells him. “And they didn’t let _me_ in on my charm alone.”

His smile fades into something more speculative. “You’re _something_ , Hawke. I’m not sure if charming is the right word.”

“Oh, _I_ see. Insult me, but don’t tell me how you actually got into Kirkwall.” She makes a sharp turn down a side street, but Anders continues on forward. It takes her a moment to backtrack and catch up to him - his legs are much longer than hers, and it has also taken him a bit to realize they are not going the same direction. She catches at the fabric of his jacket and gets his feathers instead. “Not _that_ way. They’re still cleaning up after the foundry went up. We’ll take a back street.”

“Is _that_ why it smells so foul here? Fouler than usual, I mean. Watch the feathers,” he tells her as he lets her tug him down her chosen route. Hawke lets go as soon as he’s walking in step beside her, surreptitiously wiping her hand on her pants.

While she likes the _look_ of his feathers, this current set is a bit...bedraggled. And possibly full of mites. She wonders if she ought to bring him any seagulls, the next time she’s out on the coast. Make himself a new set of pauldrons.

“I had help,” he says suddenly, and it takes a moment for Hawke to realize what he’s talking about. “From a...friend, in Amaranthine.” He says the word _friend_ so strangely, like he isn’t certain it is the right label. “A friend of Justice,” he continues, and Hawke tips her head to look at him. She doesn’t realize that she is frowning, just a little. “Oh, don’t look like that. He had friends. _Has_ , I should say, because she’s still...dear.”

Again, an odd look crosses his face. This is something she shouldn’t pry at, Hawke thinks, just like she shouldn’t pry about Karl.

“Anyway, she got us into Kirkwall. Or, got us on a ship, at least.” They pass under a line of laundry strung between two open windows, then take the steps that follow by twos. “Took a ship, had some more problems with some more wardens, snuck into the city and here I am!”

“Huh.” She jumps down the last three stairs to keep up with him. “Sounds fun.”

“Very.”

They lapse into a comfortable silence then as they continue through the increasingly narrow streets of Lowtown. It’s a bit of a maze, really, houses built upon houses, stretching up several stories with all of the poor packed in. As the sun begins to sink, all of the brightly colored clothes hung about look red.

Hawke leads them around several sharp turns, ignoring the sidelong glances that Anders keeps giving her.

“Are you _sure_ this is the right way? You’re not luring me to some forgotten part of the city for nefarious reasons, right?”

Hawke snorts back a laugh and rolls her eyes. “I am absolutely certain we’re going the right way. We’ll be at the docks in no time. And - in case you’re worried - that’s not really how I went about dealing with people when I was with the Red Iron. Trust me, if I had some sort of nefarious plans for you, you’d know.”

“I suppose I should be glad to hear that.” Anders comes to a stop as she takes another turn down an alley, then follows.

“ _See?_ ” Hawke spreads her hands wide as the street opens up before them and they are both hit more fully by the salty air. “Ships, water, and _oh_ , do I see _docks?_ ”

“It appears you were right, my dear lady. I was wrong to doubt you.” When she looks at him, that cheeky smile is back.

She _likes_ this. Friendship, with someone like him. She hadn’t thought, back when they met - he’d been part of a job at first, to be perfectly honest. He’d been one more step she needed to take to get in on Bartrand’s Deep Roads expedition. And now?

Hawke finds that she likes seeing him smile.

There’s still a good amount of movement on the docks, workers still moving the last shipments of the day into warehouses. They walk past them, mostly unnoticed, just another pair of Kirkwall citizens, out for an evening stroll. To the docks. While one of them wears feathers, and both of them are fully capable of calling on magic at a moment’s notice.

That is something else she’s been missing, she realizes. Something that had been gone since Bethany had...since Bethany. Talking with, spending time with someone who both knew her secret and _shared_ it.

They walk along until they come to a deserted part of the docks, and there Anders stops for a moment, looking out over the water. Hawke knows what he is looking at before she turns, and when she does she sees the Gallows turned red and gold in the light of the dying sun.

When she looks to Anders, there is a tautness in his jaw, a tightness to his face. As he looks out over the water, she can see little spider lines at the corner of his eye, faint furrows at the edges of his mouth.

“Maybe this wasn’t the best place to come,” she says, drawing his attention back to her. For a moment, his face is still hard, but as he looks at her all of the lines soften, disappear.

He shakes his head, just slightly. “No, it’s all right. It’s just a reminder.”

Hawke purses her lips, then looks back out at the Gallows. The tall building, jutting up into the sky. It sets her bones on edge, a nervous electricity in her skin that has nothing to do with her magic.

“We were in the yard there for weeks,” she says softly, quiet so that her voice cannot carry past him. “It’s the closest I’d ever been to... _well_. I’d only ever seen a Circle before, from a distance. Father showed us once, back in Ferelden. As a reminder for us, too, I guess. Of where we could have been.” She gives a dry, humorless laugh. “Those weeks, I kept thinking that someone was going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person and I’d end up being there forever.”

Anders draws in a sharp breath beside her. A glance his way shows that he is not looking at the Gallows, but at her. For a moment, there is something terribly sad about the cast of his face.

As he opens his mouth to speak, a dock worker comes around a corner and into view, a heavy crate in their arms. Anders glances up and about, aware of their surroundings, and then he steps forward and lightly touches her elbow, drawing her away from the water’s edge.

“We should go,” he says, and this time Hawke lets him lead her. They don’t speak for a time as they walk back through the city, and when they do once more, it is of far lighter topics than that of the Gallows.

“I could walk _you_ home, you know,” Hawke says as they turn onto the street leading to her house, having made their way back.

“You don’t need to do that. Besides, Darktown’s terrible this time of...ever.” It’s short work to come to her home, and he stops at the foot of her stairs. It’s grown darker, the sun finally having dipped under the horizon. “No need for you to come down there.”

Hawke chews on her lip, looking at him, his features turned less distinct in the evening light. For just a moment, she hesitates, a question unasked on her tongue, and then she leaps ahead anyway.

“Well, if I don’t need to come down there, why don’t you come up here?” she says and sees him start. “Not _here_ , exactly, but - I’m going up to Sundermount in two days to deal with some business. If your clinic doesn’t have you too busy, why don’t - I mean to say, would you like to come along? It’s certain to be exciting - there will be _trees_ and _rocks_ and possibly some spiders.”

He is quiet for a moment, and Hawke has the sudden panicked thought that she’s said something wrong.

“I guess you’re going to be one of those friends always dragging me to strange places,” he says, almost wistfully, but then he looks her straight on and she can see that smile of his. “All right, Hawke. I’ll come with you to see those trees and rocks. I could do without the spiders, though.”

“I could, too.” She walks up three steps, then back down one, wavering. “I’ll see you in two days then? Meet me at the Hanged Man. In the morning. We always meet up in the Hanged Man, you know. Best meeting spot in Kirkwall!”

“I’ll bet it is.” That smile on his face softens. “Two days then, Hawke. I won’t miss it.”

“ _Good_. I’ll - two days!” She goes back up another step. Pauses. “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t be. Good _night_ , Hawke.”

“Good night, Anders.”

She stays on the steps until he’s out of site, sees him glance back over his shoulder at her at the last moment. She waves, feeling silly, and then takes the steps by two’s until she’s back up at her door.

Everything within is quiet when she walks inside, her dog asleep before the fire and Gamlen no longer there. Hawke feels relieved at that, and crosses to the backroom, hopping as she tries to remove her boots while walking.

Two days. In two days, she’ll be heading to Sundermount to make good on her promise to Flemeth. She’s uncertain about what she’ll face, but at least she’ll have someone she thinks she trusts there to watch her back.

 


End file.
